Talk:Victoria Darlington
Fenris :Hey! Fenris again. I'm helping Malk because I have some free time. So, Re: Prime. I really don't mean to sound discouraging, but reading the prime section amounted to a lot of text what did a lot of theory-crafting, which would be very interesting IC, but doesn't really help us understand how Victoria manages the practical use of her foci. What we need is a better understanding of the mechanics. I gathered that she sees Prime as a sort of universal genome, and thus approaches it with an understanding of patterns; that makes sense. However, it's not made entirely clear how she does this. Does she meditate on a labyrinth, or a mandala? Does she attempt to determine mathematical patterns in stellar phenomena? Does she use a pen to draw lines between her arm freckles? If she were presented with a situation in the field, how would she summon up Prime magic? That's what we need to know. (The explanation sort of came across as Prime itself being her foci to the universe, and thus rather self-referential, but I don't think that's what you intended. See my note below about idiot-proofing, becuz i r smrat and don't always get it.). *Also, brevity is akin to godliness in apps for us wizzen, since we usually have so many to go through. We do appreciate the obvious amount of thought that has gone into this app, though, and hope the same attention to detail will be illustrated on-screen! However, for the sake of our sanity, you don't have to go into the minutiae of a character's philosophy. A brief, idiot-proof explanation (the what/why) followed by the how is usually enough. (And helps us a lot, because clarity = yay!). *On a related note: Make sure to proof-read your work. There were a few grammatical errors (lack of apostrophes, your instead of you're, etc.) I stumbled over that caught me up and prevented the reviewing process from being as fluid as it could be. Not a big deal, but it does make a difference when we're trying to critique these as fast as possible so you can play ASAP. :D (Also, I think it's been well-established by now that I have grammar neuroses >.>). Oh, also. Feel free to talk to me on the MUSH proper if you'd like to clarify some things through chat. - Fenris. My strategy has been 'if they want more, I'll add more detail', so I quadrupled the size of the Prime thing with as much detail as I could think up. In both cases, it was basically just ...my interpretation of the standard VA fluff book's work on Prime, and how the VA think it fits into the other spheres. Anyways, I reverted back to its original state, and added a more focus-oriented paragraph. *I understand the general principal behind what's she doing; that's fine. What I need is a trigger mechanism: What is this 'weird mental state'? How does she enter it, and of what does it consist? How does it manifest for her? Is it like a Waking/Lucid dream, or projecting her consciousness into whatever she wants to affect (going into the 'dream' of the object/target)? My suggestion would be using mantras or puzzles (like Zen Koan see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dan) to enter this sort of state. Koan poke your mind into thinking in a certain way/certain direction, not unlike a program trigger, and thus could be situated in the VA paradigm. (To get this methodology, she may have studied with the Ecstatics or Dreamspeakers for some time, just as a suggestion. (Or maybe from that Akashic). Personal research could work too, but that's less interesting >.> (and would have taken longer)). *Re: Banality. The consensus seems to be between 5-7. I'd say 6, for a variety of reasons. VAs tend towards higher Banality because they don't tend to buy into the mystic paradigm. Victoria is less about cold rationality, but still a VA. Also she was very Banal before, but is in the process of working it down. It can get lower through more RP in that direction. *Malk's going to glance over your sheet and history again shortly, so I'll let him take care of that. Thanks for being so patient! --Fenris Malkav First off, I'll start by saying that I still think this is a viable character idea. We're just having some communication problems here and there. I think the first order of business is going to be a general cleanup and a focus on clarity overall. Not just in proofreading, but the writing in general. There are several instances where your phrasing becomes obtuse and/or flowery to the point where I literally am not sure what you're trying to get across. Interesting prose is all well and good (and encouraged!), but I find that clarity is infinitely more preferable to wordiness, especially when it comes to me trying to understand who and why your character is. I'm not saying strip it down to a sterile outline or anything like that, but try reading it from an external point of view to see if phrasing or structure is confusing. This isn't an attempt to write the Next Great Novel, this is an attempt to make me understand what it is that makes your character tick and where she's coming from. In terms of raw numbers and such, things are much simpler: *You mention Ethics twice in your point breakdown. What's that? *You took a point of Dream with your base dots, so you'd only need to spend 4 freebies to get it to 5. Your total Backgrounds freebie expenditures would only be 7. Your sheet otherwise looks fairly straightforward. I'm not going to require you to shave off a point of freebies to fit within the Practiced experience tier, it's close enough not to really matter. --Malkav 22:16, July 1, 2010 (UTC)